bees clean up empty supers... ? ...

[harold steinberg]

Advice please!

I have removed my supers for harvest. There are a few areas with uncapped honey/nectar here and there. I’ll just leave it (its a crush and strain) and give it back to the bees when I give them the empty supers to clean up, but… I want to remove those supers for the winter. If I put the supers back on top of the hive for clean up won’t the bees simply try and refill them? How do I get them to empty them? Do I put them on the bottom of the hive stack? Or do I just wait another two or three weeks and put them on top? Or do I just leave them all sticky for the winter?

I have 1/2 acre of buckwheat just starting to flower. I want the bees to store whatever they harvest in the deeps, not the supers I just emptied… :)

H. Adam Steinberg

7904 Bowman Rd

Lodi, WI 53555

608/695-5707

[Greg V]

I think you want the bees to NOT consider those supers a part of their nest.
Then they will clean them out by carrying the leftover carbs into the nest.

How to do it - for a vertical hive, maybe, use an empty box as a divider between the supers and the nest?
The logic being that some significant empty space between the true nest and the target super should signal just that.

Not an expert here, obviously.

On Monday, August 22, 2016 at 2:31:07 PM UTC-5, H. Adam Steinberg wrote:

Advice please!..............

[James]

The text book answer is you put extracted supers back on the stack on top of the inner cover, put your outer cover on top of the extracted supers, and the bees will clean them up and move the honey remnants down.  When I do this, (especially with fall approaching), I block off any upper entrances to the super in question to prevent robbing.  This will take a week or so, depending on the hive and the weather.

This works a fair amount of the time, but there's always a few hives that try to reload them.  

The other approach is to take the super off site and let them get robbed out.  I do this in spring and summer quite a bit, but the worry in fall is that you start encouraging robbing behaviour.  But on a good day, it will be dry in 24 hours.  

I don't have a plan C, but maybe someone else does.

Good Luck

On Monday, August 22, 2016 at 2:31:07 PM UTC-5, H. Adam Steinberg wrote:

[John B]

Harold,
I also crush and strain. When i run into uncapped cells (nectar/unripe honey) i cut it out and let it drop into a different pail. Then i crush and strain that separately. If you keep the now-strained nectar for yourself to eat be sure to label it as Nectar and keep it refrigerated or frozen. If you want to feed it back to your bees you can feed it from a jar above the inner cover.
John

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "madbees" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to madbees+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Tim Aure]

Don the FBM says the old timers would hold the frames that were partially uncapped horizontal and shake it. If honey doesn't shake out they considered it ready. 

I also set my frames over a box fan laid flat on a couple of 2x4's in my furnace room with the dehumidifier running for 3-5 days.

Sent from my iPhone

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to madbees+u...@googlegroups.com.

[Paul Zelenski]

If you have small spots of uncapped honey, you can extract it with the rest. This time of year, it is likely as dry as it needs to be, the cells just aren't full. Even if it isn't, it probably won't dilute the rest of your honey too much. You could bring it to a meeting where someone with a refractometer can help you test it. I also have put supers above a fan in a small room with a dehumidifier and sometimes it gets too dry. So, it definitely works. 

If you want the bees to clean it up, you can either just set it out and watch the frenzy of bees come to eat it. It is possible to start some robbing if you put it too close to your hives. Or you can put it above the inner cover. I also put an empty super (no frames) between the inner over and the wet super. That way, they never refill it. 

It is also fine to store supers wet for when you give them back to the bees. Not sure how well that will work if you have small patches of comb, but works great when you use an extractor. 

[harold steinberg]

Thanks everyone for the advice!

I will put them on top of an empty super over the inner cover, it will be like feeding from the top. Why I don’t think of that…!